


Family, House, Wizard, Country

by Emma_Wolf



Category: Harry Potter - Fandom
Genre: Deathly Hallows, Gen, Hogwarts, Hufflepuff
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-09-20
Updated: 2016-09-23
Packaged: 2018-08-16 08:03:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,586
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8094403
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Emma_Wolf/pseuds/Emma_Wolf
Summary: Post-Half Blood Prince. Zach comes home before Dumbledore's funeral and is pressured once again by his family to keep their secret.





	1. Chapter 1

Zacharias dropped his bags by the door with a heavy thud. Next to him, his father Peter sighed. His mustache bristled, and Zach knew it was hiding a frown. “We don’t have any house elves here. You’ll have to take your things to your room yourself.”

Zacharias rolled his eyes.

“Look, I know you wanted to be with your friends, but family comes first. And it’s just not safe now.”

His sister came bounding down the stairs. “Is that you, Zach?” she called.

“What are you doing home?” he asked sullenly.

She quirked her mouth at his less than warm greeting. “I took off from work when I heard the news. I thought maybe you’d need to be around family. Nice to see you too.”

He didn’t want to admit it, not in front of his father anyway, but he was comforted by her presence. It meant a lot to him that she’d be willing to miss work—she’d just landed her dream job at Gladrags—to see him in what she thought must be his time of need. So he just stood there like a statue while she threw her arms around him.

“I’ll always be there for you,” she whispered. He noticed then that her voice was raw like she had been crying.

“Thanks, Ruth. But I’d rather be at school.” He felt like a traitor, but he had to admit the truth. He needed to grieve with those who knew what he was feeling. Ruth could be sad now, when she was five years away from Hogwarts, but it wasn’t the same thing as knowing you’ll have to face it without Professor Dumbledore.

Ruth pulled back and sighed sympathetically. The hard set in her jaw reminded him that there was more to the story. As always. “Dad thought it would be better for you here. He knows you’re friends with that Potter boy. He didn’t want you to do anything...” she searched for the word. She finally settled on “imprudent” with a frown.

Zacharias rolled his eyes again. “It’s not like we stay up all night gossiping. We just had some classes together. He’s not even in my house.”

Family, house, wizard, country. The hierarchy rang in his mind unbidden. The list of people he must be loyal to in order. It still bothered him that his family needed him now. That they feared that by his presence at Hogwarts, he would betray them.

“He just thought it would be easier for you here.”

“I’m not going to say anything.”

Her mouth turned down like she didn’t believe him. “Even so.”

Still sullen, he carried his bag to his bedroom. Of course, it was painted in Hufflepuff colors, but in softer tones. A dark cream and charcoal. As though for a baby. His mother Annalise had known what house he’d be in when she had decorated his nursery. All Smiths were. It wasn’t anything genetic or a pureblood bias or even that they were descendants of Helga Hufflepuff herself, his mother had explained when an eleven-year old Zacharias had doubts before catching the train.

“Your father and I worked to instill the values of Hufflepuff in you since you were born,” she had said as they passed through the barrier to platform 9 3/4 for the first time together. “Loyalty. Fairness. Hard work. Family.”

“Family,” Zacharias thought as he lay on his bed. Yes, he loved his family, but never had the burden of family felt as great as it did then. All over a stupid cup.

Thinking about it made him angry. He ran back down the stairs and out the door, calling “I’m going for a walk,” as he went. He wanted to add “I’ll try not to let it slip out that our family provided the key to You Know Who’s immortality on the way” just to spite his father, but he knew better than to provoke a fight for no reason.

At the park he ran into Finley and Ben, two neighborhood kids that he had been friends with growing up. Before Hogwarts, the three of them were almost inseparable. The story they knew was that Zacharias went to some school in Austria, where his mother still has some family.

They looked surprised to see him. “Zach’s back!” Ben said. “I thought your mom told me your school doesn’t let out for another week. What’d you do, get kicked out?”

Zacharias ran his fingers through his hair uncomfortably. Living in a muggle neighborhood and having muggle friends meant he had to keep secrets at all times. He was used to that. He was a Smith after all. “Nah, there are some family things going on I have to be here for.” The answer was true enough.

A part of him—a foolish part that didn’t care about his family or even the International Statute of Wizarding Secrecy—wanted to tell Ben and Finley about his troubles. “My family brought me home early because they were afraid I’d tell Harry Potter that my family were the ones to give He Who Must Not Be Named the tools to immortality,” he’d say. “Telling Harry will help him defeat him, but it will incriminate our family.” He imagined their bewildered faces and frowned.

“You look like something’s bothering you,” Finley said. Zacharias didn’t know if it was concern in his voice or mere curiosity.

He sighed loudly. It would be impossible to tell his friends the truth of course, but maybe there was something close enough to the truth that he could share. He considered telling them that there was a family secret from a long time ago--something bad that they did--but any way he tried to word it would make them sound like they had been Nazis. “Just family stuff. I thought I could escape it at school, but here I am.”

Ben and Finley nodded like they understood.

“At least you get to get away for most of the year,” Ben said with envy in his voice. “I’d love to get away from my parents for even a week.”

“Your parents aren’t that bad,” Finley argued. “Your mom lets you pinch her cigarettes, and your dad’s got all those nudie magazines behind the bookshelf.”

Zacharias wished his problems were so simple that they could be solved by porn and cigarettes.

 

***

 

Back at home, Ruth was listening to the wireless and preparing dinner. “I made your favorite,” she said cheerfully as she stirred the curry.

He gave her a weak smile.

“You can talk to me, you know,” she said somewhat curtly. “I know you don’t want to be here, but you don’t have to go moping around.”

“How can you stand it?” All pretense of civility went out the window.

She narrowed her eyes. “Stand what?”

“Pretending there’s nothing wrong and making curry.”

She tried to speak calmly. “I know you’re upset about Professor Dumbledore.”

“I’m not talking about Dumbledore,” he nearly shouted. “I mean the cup! Not telling anyone when you know it could bring You Know Who down!”

“First of all, we don’t know that. We don’t know for certain that he even took the cup.”

“Oh, spare me the bullshit.” Zacharias knew the story: the young man from Borgin and Burkes came to look at Hepzibah’s artifacts. Two days later, give or take, she died. And a few days after that, her brother noticed certain items to be left to him in her will were gone. The young man was gone too. Oh, and that young man just happened to be the darkest of dark wizards. It was clear, to Zacharias at least, that he took it. “Why can’t we help?”

“You know why,” she whispered.

Family, house, wizard, country. The secret would destroy the family.


	2. Chapter 2

Zacharias first heard the story after his second year at Hogwarts. His father had taken him and his sister to the sitting room and cast _Muffliato_ over the room. Their mother shut the curtains tight and poured tea with shaking hands.

“We need to talk about what happened this year at school,” she began tentatively.

Ruth and Zacharias exchanged a look. Neither of them had been too worried for their own safety. Their family was pureblood with roots all the way back to Helga Hufflepuff herself. At least, that’s what they thought. They looked nervous as though their parents were about to tell them they had been adopted.

“The last time the Chamber was opened was long ago, but still in living memory,” their father told them.

“Binns told us there’s no such thing.”

“Well, if the truth got out, it would terrify people, wouldn’t it?” Their father spoke as calmly as though he were commenting on the weather.

Bit by bit, the story came out. How his father’s aunt flirted with a younger man. How she showed him her most prized possessions. How he had been known to ask about immortality at any cost. How the possessions were stolen to the shame of the family and used to give that young man more power.

“So why are you telling us all this?” Instead of being excited to know a secret, Ruth was angry. “What’s the point? Why not just let the shame die out with Hepzibah herself? Why do we need to know?”

Their father took a deep breath. Their mother put her hands over his to give him strength. Annalise was a model of the trait of loyalty, sticking by her husband’s side despite his family’s—her family now—secret. Never wavering and always doing what needed to be done. She nodded to her husband, and he continued. “The loss of the cup and locket still occurred in living memory. People still know they were last seen with our family.”

Ruth was not pacified. “Well so what? Big deal that You Know Who stole some cup and locket from Great Auntie Hepzibah. She was the victim. Who cares?”

Their father sighed heavily. “It wasn’t just some ordinary cup.”

Ruth rolled her eyes. “Yeah, you said. Helga’s cup. Does it still have her backwash in it or something?”

Finally annoyed with his daughter, Peter grinded his teeth. “Weren’t you listening? These are powerful magical objects. And we think He Who Must Not be Named is using them to make himself stronger.”

Zach grew pale. “You think it was You Know Who that attacked the Weasley girl?”

Annalise nodded. “The Ministry wants to keep it quiet, but we think he got to her through the diary. And we think those other objects—the locket, the cup, maybe more—can do the same. And those objects are still out there. And connected to us.”

Zach fell quiet, and Ruth had finally run out of snide remarks.

“As far as anyone knows,” Peter continued, “the Smith family still has Helga’s cup and the Slytherin locket. And that’s the story that you all need to remember for anyone outside the family.”

Zach cleared his throat. “And inside the family? What’s the truth?”

“We’re...looking for them,” his father said, stingy with his words. “And this is why I’m telling you both. We need to you to be our eyes and ears at Hogwarts. Look for something that’s there that shouldn’t be. Or perhaps more telling, something that’s not there that should be. If you hear anything about these artifacts, we need to know. At the same time, you need to keep your mouth shut about them. Above all, we must protect the family.”

***

A few days later, Dumbledore’s funeral was over and all Zach’s friends were home from Hogwarts. He got an owl from Justin asking why he left so suddenly and if he could come by for the summer. “Susan is coming,” Justin had added as a postscript, hoping that he could entice Zach by mentioning his crush. But Zach just tossed the letter aside. There was no one from school he wanted to see. Except maybe for...

If there was one person who would understand how family could be an albatross around one’s neck, it would be Ron Weasley. Ron with his drop-out brothers and bitchy sister. Zach still remembered how she practically threw herself at him on the train to Hogwarts. He’d turned her down politely—Susan had been in the compartment—and gotten a bat bogey hex for his troubles. And then there was the time that she _literally_ threw herself at him after the Quidditch match.

While it was bad enough having crap relatives, Ron was cursed with admirable ones too. In classes, Zach saw how Ron was always compared to his brothers Bill or Percy. On the Quidditch pitch, he was compared to Charlie. Zach saw that there was no winning for him. When he did something right, it wasn’t as good as what his older brothers had done. When he did something wrong, he was told he was just like the twins.

And Ron was the one person who might understand what he was going through, Zach thought as he glowered at Justin’s letter. Without thinking, Zach pulled out a quill and parchment from his desk drawer. “Hi Ron,” he began. “I know we’re not really friends, but I just had to tell someone. I thought maybe you would understand.”

“Stupid! Stupid!” he said as he crumpled up the parchment and threw it into the trashcan. He stuck the end of his quill in his mouth and thought. What if he started it as though they were friends? As though it were completely natural that he would confide in him.

He began again. “Hey, there’s something I need to tell you. It’s about You Know Who. He has a secret. It’s my secret too. I’m telling you because I don’t know who else to tell. You’re the type of person who knows people who can use this information. You’re the type of person who won’t judge people for their family.”

And the words flowed. About the cup and the locket. About the diary from years before. The one that got his sister. It’s how he proved he was serious. No one was supposed to know the whole truth about what had happened to her. And finally about his family’s theory that Voldemort was looking for something from each of the founders. Maybe a sword and a diadem too. Wherever they were.

Zach jumped when he heard his father yell. “We’ve found it!”

Zach had been so engrossed in his letter he hadn’t even noticed that his father had cast _Muffliato_ over the entire house, causing the shout to reverb off the spell in a distorted _whumping_. Zach threw his hands over his ears.

“Found what?” Zach asked as he thundered down the stairs.

“The cup, stupid,” Ruth said as she pushed her brother out of the way. “Where is it?”

Their father wore a big, stupid grin on his face, but he shook his head. “Not the cup. Not exactly. A picture of it. We know where it is. And the locket. I’ve found that too.”

“Well, where are they?” Zach said, annoyed at his father’s sense of drama.

“After all these years, it just shows up under our noses. Can you believe it?” He was nearly giddy, a sharp contrast to his pinstripe robe and smart hat. He always looked so proper. Even when he wanted to dance around the room from his good news.

“Where?” Ruth hissed.

“At the Ministry, of course.”

 _Of course_. As though it were immediately obvious. Of course You Know Who’s horcruxes—the most evil artifacts of the most evil wizard—would show up at the Ministry of Magic. They were in the cafeteria with the silverware. There was a basket for knives, forks, spoons, and one for horcruxes, of course.

“Where?” Ruth clenched her fists as though restraining herself from grabbing the collar of her father’s robe.

Their father took a deep breath. The fervor seemed to have left his eyes, and he came to his senses. He returned to his usual stoic demeanor. “Yes, of course. Shall I make a cup of tea? Your mother will be home soon, then we’ll talk about it as a family.”

As if on cue, the fireplace took on a greenish hue. Annalise ignored her two children and strode determinedly to her husband. “You found it, Peter.” It wasn’t a question. It was a statement she had confidence in. She let out a great sigh. “Where is it? Did you bring it here?”

Their father poured four cups of tea. “Found, but not retrieved.”

Their mother’s jaw grew tense.

“The locket too,” he said as he slipped his wife the tea.

Their father placed what looked to be a tube of lipstick on the table.

“Is that it?” Zach asked.

“No, you dolt,” Ruth said as she rotated one end of the tube. An image of massive piles of gold and treasure projected onto their dining room wall. And, sure enough, in one corner, there was a small golden cup, bedecked with jewels and an engraved badger.

Ruth gasped, and their mother raised her eyebrows.

“So, where is it?”

“Well, there’s the rub. In the Lestranges’ Gringott’s vault.”

Annalise cursed. It was uncharacteristic of her. Zach thought of his mother as kind and forgiving. But there she was with some of the foulest words Zach knew falling out of her mouth. “So how did you get this picture?”

“It’s simple, really. I don’t know why we didn’t realize this before.”

“Get on with it!” Ruth nearly shouted.

“Ruth! Temper!” Annalise said without a hint of irony in her voice.

“When the Lestranges were sent to Azkaban, their assets were seized,” Peter explained in a smooth, calm voice. “But, of course, Gringotts doesn’t recognize the law of forfeiture. They think it’s a silly, muggle convention and won’t honor it. But, when a vault holder has been convicted of a crime that would be subject to the law and there is no other holder or heir apparent, they will allow the Ministry to take an image of the vault’s contents. This image has been in the Ministry’s file for fifteen years.”

“So how do we get to it?” Ruth asked. The irritation was still thick in her voice.

Zach didn’t understand how his father had been so excited by this discovery. It seemed to him that knowing where the cup was didn’t solve anything. They were in the same position they had always been in. They couldn’t access or destroy the cup. Knowing that it was guarded by dragons didn’t make Zach feel any better. What did it matter now that they knew?

Peter shrugged. “Well, that’s for us to plan now.”

A silence fell over the four of them as they all pondered how hopeless it seemed. Finally, Annalise nodded. “And the locket?”

Peter gave a mirthless laugh and turned to his son. “Around the neck of your old teacher, Professor Umbridge.”

And with that, the Smith family did their best to concoct a plan. It was the first time Zach could remember wishing he had more cousins. On his mother’s side, he had plenty. At holidays and family functions, they would pick out all the good flavors of Zach’s Bertie Bott’s Every Flavor Beans and leave Zach with haggis and cabbage flavors if he was lucky. They didn’t know this secret, of course, so they wouldn’t be asked to help. And as his father was an only child, there were no cousins there to rely on.

Zach’s thoughts turned back to Ron and his six siblings. There would be no shortage of ideas there. Zach’s jaw fell open when he remembered one of Ron’s older brothers was a curse breaker at Gringotts.

“What is it?” his mother asked. “Have you thought of something?”

He snapped his jaw shut and shook his head. “Well, for the locket, maybe,” he said as he hastily tried to think of something that resembled an idea. “Ruth, you’re a fashion designer for Gladrags. Do you know anyone who designs jewelry who can make a counterfeit locket for you if you tell them what it’s supposed to look like?”

“Anyone I can trust, you mean?”

“Right.”

She thought about it for a moment and offered a tentative maybe.

“Better yet,” Peter added, “see if that person will teach you to do it. Asking them to copy the necklace could lead to too many questions. I don’t want to give away more than we have to, and even a letting others know what the necklace looks like could be too much.”

Zach rolled his eyes. How typical of his father to not trust anyone else. It seemed to Zach that the flipside of loyalty was his father’s near paranoid distrust of outsiders.

After hours of what seemed like futile brainstorming over leftovers, Zach went to his room to get to bed. He saw the half-written letter to Ron still lying on his desk. With a sudden flash of guilt, he looked over his shoulder. If his parents or Ruth had seen it... He quickly wadded up the paper, tossed it into the fireplace, and pointed his wand at it.

“Incendio.”

There were a dozen ways a written message could be intercepted. In his own home by his family. An owl could be taken or lost. Or Ron could carelessly leave the letter lying around. Better to tell him in person. Zach made up his mind to find Ron on the train to Hogwarts and tell him then.

**Author's Note:**

> This is kind of in response to someone's idea that ambition is the only house trait that could lead to evil. We haven't seen any Hufflepuff turn Death Eater, and I wonder why. Can loyalty and hard work be corrupted? So I explore it for a bit.


End file.
